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Been seeing many discussions lately about how the photography business is suffering because of new trends in the industry… This drives me crazy. New tools do not really change a thing other than provide practitioners with new means of expression…

Photography is art…

Art is art. Making money with art has most always been a hit or miss endeavor. Photography is art and now really beginning to be accepted as “fine art.” (a print brought $4.3 million at Christies last year.)

We must, by its very nature, expect the “business” of photography to be difficult. But because it is art I for one do not accept the statistical treatment of the business.

BE AN ARTIST. Find your inner voice and shoot to that tune. Do not so much concern yourself with the money. Be an artist (I’m sure you’ve heard of the starving artist… no joke here…) But when you win through the reward is real both in the creation of your visions and in the monetary reward.

Don’t go for mass market photography… Is that why you entered into this? To create lots of cookie cutter low atheistic images for display on the internet or on digital photo frames or flat screen TV’s or 4X5 prints from WalMart? Not me.

Craft your unique vision. Work on it in your shooting and in the digital darkroom. Develop your own style and use all the tools at your disposal to realize your vision. Apply the techniques of Adams, Westen, Steichen, Eisenstaedt, Wall, Gursky, Sherman, Lik, Avedon, and every other great photographer of the past 80 years or so.

Don’t give up on prints –

PRINT BIG, 2 feet, 4 feet, 8 feet – make walls and charge for it…

I SAY AGAIN, DON’T GIVE UP ON PRINTS – INSTEAD –

LEARN TO PRINT YOUR OWN WORK. IT IS PART OF THE ART!

If you want to be all digital – create unique display images for the large flat screen. Make your images desirable for digital display. Charge for it. Bill Gates founded Corbis. He digitized the Louvere. He has high resolution flat screen displays around his home displaying great images in endless loops. Art is all about display. Adapt your thinking to this reality. Create your market segment by your unique vision and develop the clientele to the point where they cannot live without your work.

Stand out! That is the way art has always been. You cannot successfully “commercialize” art without, at the same time, making it a commodity. Buck the trend and be an artist – that is what is in the life blood of photography – artistry and invention – We must cease the MBA analysis of our art form and be the inventive artists we are…

Photography is the greatest of the visual media and moves people in ways no other form ever has. That is why it has become so ubiquitous. We must capitalize on this and lead the way to visual and technical greatness. Stand out and lead…

Lastly…

Try reading Susan Sontag’s great book “Photography” it will help to develop your personal atheistic…

Find your photographic passion and live it out! Join with me in this great adventure…